…is still very much threatened.
And this is not a new problem; it’s been going on for over two decades. If you’re interested, you might want to look at some of the works of Harvey Silverglate, and of this organization.
Another reversal from Trump, this time about giving illegal orders to the military
First Trump walked back his immigration reversal from the debate (I discussed the original positions and the reversal here), without explanation or apology.
Yesterday he did the same with his statements during the debate on ordering the military to follow his illegal orders and having them obey because he’s a true leader (for example, to target the families of terrorists). This is another complete reversal within less than 24 hours, virtually unexplained. This is his specialty.
To get the flavor of the sort of mild excuse that Trump is offering for an error that was profoundly serious and from his own mouth, see this:
But in a statement Friday, Trump said that he understands “that the United States is bound by laws and treaties” and that he would “not order our military or other officials to violate those laws and will seek their advice on such matters.”
He added, “I will not order a military officer to disobey the law. It is clear that as president I will be bound by laws just like all Americans and I will meet those responsibilities.”
…Katrina Pierson, a Trump spokeswoman, said the candidate had been misunderstood.
“He realized they took him literally, that’s why he put out the statement,” she told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room.” “What he’s saying is that he wants to go after them with the full force of everything we have.”
Neither the statement nor the campaign’s explanations were enough to quell the bipartisan uproar.
The lead Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said that while Trump “has now said he would obey the law, he has yet to specifically disavow torture or killing the families of our enemies.”
“Let’s be clear,” Schiff said in a statement Friday, “these are war crimes, no matter who is ordering them or carrying them out.”
“Misunderstand” my arse. “They took him literally” is now another way to say, “They listened to what he said and believed he meant it.” It is clear what is happening here. Trump said what he meant, got more negative response than he expected, and walked it back in order to soothe and placate.
It is also clear that his pattern indicates that everything he says is up for grabs, everything will be shamelessly adjusted and lied about, and most of his supporters will bend to whatever he says and to the revisions, just like the good little camp followers that they are. Two plus two equals five? Sure thing; no problem. Is it four today? Got it; spread the word.
I spent an hour or so this morning—an hour I’ll never get back—reading around on a bunch of blogs that have been taken over by Trump activists. I’ll save the question of who they are for another post, but suffice to say that it is repetitive, pile-driver stuff. They swarm, insult, and lie to and about anyone who disagrees, and they probably now account for at least 90% of the commenters on many blogs that used to feature a nice give and take of substantive comments on substantive issues. No more. Now it’s all invective, all the time, interspersed with cheerleading, excuses, and lies about both Trump and the candidates (and commenters) who oppose him.
As for Trump’s walkbacks from what he said during the primaries, the activist commenters aren’t even dealing with it for the most part; they’re just taking it in stride and mounting their usual attacks. But on other blogs where there are fewer of these activist and more of the less-activist (but still fervent) Trump supporters, the latter group of people are pretty much following these playbooks: “that’s what Trump meant in the first place” or “Trump corrected it, move on” or “there’s nothing wrong with either position of Trump’s.” It’s all nothing to them, and that’s because for most of them this isn’t really about Trump. It’s about getting even with the GOP.
As for me, as I’ve written many times before, I think that although nothing Trump says and no positions he takes are rock-solid and all should be regarded as mere poses, nevertheless the ones that mean the most of the ones that come straight from the unscripted horse’s mouth. Those represent his truest heart’s desire and his most basic intent, and they are consistently on the order of disregarding the Rule of Law and substituting the Rule of Trump.
[NOTE: Here’s an interesting piece by someone who’s known and worked with Trump over the years. It’s not directly related to the body of this post, but it seemed like as good as any a place to put it.)
Are super intelligent human beings coming?
One other thing about last night’s debate…
…is that I think Ted Cruz showed his substance in terms of content and presidential caliber. It’s not easy to keep one’s dignity up there, but he did. Strong, resolute, consistent.
Whether it will change any minds I haven’t a clue.
And I’d really really like to see a ticket with Cruz for president and Rubio for VP emerge ASAP. It won’t, however. But here’s a suggestion as to how that might work:
The plan is simple: Each candidate publicly pledges to support for president whichever of them has the most delegates to the Republican convention. In return, the winner will make the other one his running mate.
Hmmm, I guess that’s two things.
Hey, I may as well add a third. Trump doesn’t seem to understand much about the federal budget. So, what’s left of Trump’s appeal? His immigration plan is an ever-changing and shifting target, and his knowledge of the budget is hazy. Oh, I guess his schlong is big*. But I’m afraid the American people will be the ones who get schlonged.
[*NOTE: By the way, there is no correlation between schlong size and hand size—or foot size, for that matter. I’m glad we’ve now cleared that up. Oops, I guess that’s four things.]
Reflections on the March 3 GOP debate: Trump’s ever-changing visa program, and plans as military leader
Many things happened during last night’s GOP debate. The level of debate discourse (can I use highfalutin words like “discourse” without being called a snobbishly out-of-touch member of the “elites”?) has fallen even further and we are now reduced to talking about the size of Trump’s male member and his hands, both of which interest me not at all (by the way, this talk of Trump’s hand size is decades old; see this).
There were substantive revelations as well, although they got somewhat lost in the din. One was that Trump mentioned what appears to be a change in his policy towards H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers, and later took it back again after he got a lot of criticism for it, saying he was never talking about that in the first place. But the intent of the question in the transcript was clear, as was Trump’s answer, and later Ted Cruz even mentions H-1B visas by name when asked a related question.
Here’s an article describing Trump’s back-and-forth on this, and here’s a piece I wrote on the subject of H-1B visas back in November when it came up in a debate in the context of Rubio’s policy on them.
The relevant part of last night’s debate went like this:
KELLY: Mr. Trump, your campaign website to this day argues that more visas for highly skilled workers would, quote, “decimate American workers”. However, at the CNBC debate, you spoke enthusiastically in favor of these visas. So, which is it?
TRUMP: I’m changing. I’m changing. We need highly skilled people in this country, and if we can’t do it, we’ll get them in. But, and we do need in Silicon Valley, we absolutely have to have.
So, we do need highly skilled, and one of the biggest problems we have is people go to the best colleges. They’ll go to Harvard, they’ll go to Stanford, they’ll go to Wharton, as soon as they’re finished they’ll get shoved out. They want to stay in this country. They want to stay here desperately, they’re not able to stay here. For that purpose, we absolutely have to be able to keep the brain power in this country.
(APPLAUSE)
KELLY: So you abandoning the position on your website…
TRUMP: … I’m changing it, and I’m softening the position because we have to have talented people in this country.
There’s nothing equivocal there. Trump repeats the word “highly skilled” and mentions Silicon Valley, which is where this visa program is often used, and he adds a list of elite colleges to make it even more clear. He also agrees that this represents a change in his policy. Later, Trump’s walkback went like this:
Trump’s post-debate statement suggested that Kelly’s question wasn’t specific to the H-1B program: “Megyn Kelly asked about highly-skilled immigration.” Then the statement goes to attack the visa program:
“The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration: these are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay. I remain totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse and ending outrageous practices such as those that occurred at Disney in Florida when Americans were forced to train their foreign replacements. I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program.
What are those who are not in the habit of rationalizing every utterance of Donald Trump to make of this? In the transcript, you can see that Kelly’s question—which was not long or involved—used the word “visa” twice and the word “immigration” not at all. So Trump’s later statement is demonstrably false on that score. We also know that he explicitly said this represented a change; how does he now explain what he had thought he was changing during the debate? I don’t think he even attempts to do so. And his description of the H-1B visa program, which he explicitly cites as being the relevant program in his later statement, is factually wrong. He says these workers are temporary and “not high-skilled,” and yet one of the main criticisms of the program (I go into it in my lengthy November piece on H-1B visas) is that these workers tend to later be sponsored for green cards and permanent citizenship, and they are overwhelmingly in STEM occupations (science, technology, engineering, and math). In addition, they are undoubtedly “high-skilled”; it is part of the requirement for entry into the program:
…Requirement 2 – Your job must qualify as a specialty occupation by meeting one of the following criteria:
A bachelor’s degree or higher degree or its equivalent is normally the minimum requirement for the particular position;
The degree requirement is common for this position in the industry, or the job is so complex or unique that it can only be performed by someone with at least a bachelor’s degree in a field related to the position;
The employer normally requires a degree or its equivalent for the position; or
The nature of the specific duties is so specialized and complex that the knowledge required to perform the duties is usually associated with the attainment of a bachelor’s or higher degree.Requirement 3 – Your job must be in a specialty occupation related to your field of study…
So these are the possibilities for what we can conclude about Donald Trump, after his statements on this in the debate and his later correction/clarification:
(1) Trump stated his true opinion during the debate, later saw that it didn’t sit well with some of his supporters, and then lied to them about what he really meant. Or perhaps his statement during the debate was the lie and the revision was the truth. Or maybe none of it is the truth and we (and he?) have no idea what his actual position is.
The entire episode, if he expects to get away with it, is an example of his contempt for the ability of people in general to follow what he’s actually saying and doing, as well as his confidence in his supporters’ blind faith in him. Perhaps he is correct on both scores. The sequence of events also appears to indicate the extreme mutability of his promises and of his entire program, since immigration policy is probably the single most important foundation on which his popular support rests.
(2) Or, alternatively, Trump simply has no idea what the H-1B program is about. Now, I find this hard to believe, because as I’ve said before I think he’s a smart man, and he’s also a businessman who should know these things even if he weren’t running for office. However, his original ad-lib answer actually indicated some understanding of the program, and it was his written revision that indicated a lack of understanding, which undercuts this explanation further. Nevertheless I include it as a possibility.
These two explanations (first one “knave,” second one “fool”) appear to be the only logical ones the fit the circumstances. Both are extremely chilling, and either ought to completely destroy him as a viable candidate. But I think I rest on safe ground in predicting that they won’t.
There was much more during the debate. But the exchange that makes my blood run cold was this one [emphasis mine]:
BAIER: Mr. Trump, just yesterday, almost 100 foreign policy experts signed on to an open letter refusing to support you, saying your embracing expansive use of torture is inexcusable. General Michael Hayden, former CIA director, NSA director, and other experts have said that when you asked the U.S. military to carry out some of your campaign promises, specifically targeting terrorists’ families, and also the use of interrogation methods more extreme than waterboarding, the military will refuse because they’ve been trained to turn down and refuse illegal orders.
So what would you do, as commander-in-chief, if the U.S. military refused to carry out those orders?
TRUMP: They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse me. Believe me.
BAIER: But they’re illegal.
TRUMP: Let me just tell you, you look at the Middle East. They’re chopping off heads. They’re chopping off the heads of Christians and anybody else that happens to be in the way. They’re drowning people in steel cages. And he — now we’re talking about waterboarding.
…Can you imagine — can you imagine these people, these animals over in the Middle East, that chop off heads, sitting around talking and seeing that we’re having a hard problem with waterboarding? We should go for waterboarding and we should go tougher than waterboarding. That’s my opinion.
BAIER: But targeting terrorists’ families?
TRUMP: And — and — and — I’m a leader. I’m a leader. I’ve always been a leader. I’ve never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they’re going to do it. That’s what leadership is all about.
Now, I’ve already seen Trump supporters trying to defend this. For example, on this very blog commenter “Kinch” had the following to say:
If you look into what the JAG types are sticking their noses into these days, it’s practically illegal to shoot a guy until the instant he points his RPG directly at you.
There. Are. Too. Many. Laws. And Lawyers.
Again, Assembled Light Bearers, this does not mean I support Nacht und Nebel Orders. And I suspect nor does Trump.
But the topic that was under discussion was not the Rules of Engagement (something we’ve talked about and criticized on this blog, for example here). The topic was Trump’s desire to expand beyond waterboarding in terms of physically coercive methods of interrogating prisoners (perhaps including outright torture; as with most things he says, he fails to specify the all-important details) and targeting terrorist’s families.
So Kinch’s reply is off-topic in that sense—plus, he does what a lot of people do with Trump, imagines that what Trump really meant is not only different, but better, than what Trump said. But Kinch’s comment is also irrelevant in another way—as are the topics of whether we should torture captives or go after families of terrorists—because Trump is not talking here about following some procedure for changing the rules. He’s talking about his own leadership skills in overcoming the rules and ordering troops to do whatever he says to do, whether his orders violate the rules and are illegal or not. He simply doesn’t care.
In essence, Trump is talking about throwing out the Rule of Law and replacing it with the Rule of Trump. And he is stating his contempt for the US military as a separate institution with its own rules, and his contempt for the members of the military, whom he sees as They Who Must Obey their Commander in Chief, Donald Trump, once the Great Leader has spoken.
[NOTE: I’ve written before of Trump’s tyrannical intentions and his lack of a respect for the limitations on presidential power and his contempt for the rule of law, here and here. The evidence mounts, based on last night’s debate.
It’s almost a side issue, but I’ll mention it anyway, that Trump equates his “leadership” skills as builder of casinos and golf resorts—which is essentially a planner and funder and employer and boss situation—with the sort of leadership and judgment required of a military Commander in Chief.]
There’s a debate tonight
You can talk about it here.
I’m only going to liveblog for a little while, because I’m in another time zone and I’m going out to dinner. Then I’ll come back late, and catch up.
But from the beginning of this, I can say that we’ve reached a new low (at 9:20 Eastern time) with Trump repeatedly calling Rubio “little Marco,” because Rubio made a good point about the fact that Trump makes some of his clothing products abroad.
Schoolyard taunts, not even worthy of junior high level. Grade school taunts. Rubio should be replying: “I may be short, but at least I’m a mature adult who left grade school behind a long time ago.”
Of course, many Americans may think that calling each other names like “little Rubio” represents a fighting alpha male. That may be the point we’ve come to.
9:25 PM: Cruz making some great points about Trump as a crony capitalist, supporting liberals, and therefore part of the DC corruption.
Shorter Kasich: Did you know I balanced a budget?
9:37 PM: Trump doesn’t want to release his off-the-record interview with the NY Times on his immigration “flexibility” because he has too much respect for the off-the-record interview process?? What on earth can anyone take from that except that it’s a nonsensical dodging of the issue?
9:40 PM: Now Trump is reversing his H-1B position; now he’s more in favor of the program. Will his supporters know or care? And Cruz has now positioned himself to the right of Trump on this. I repeat: will anyone know or care?
The world is safe from my hair products
I was going to be getting on a plane a few days ago and packed in a hurry. Since I usually have a problem with suitcase overweight and have gotten a bit paranoid about it, at the last minute I tossed some of the heavier things from my large suitcase into my carry-on. The large one checked in at a hefty-but-under-the-maximum 48.5 pounds, and I congratulated myself for having just squeaked by.
That is, until I went through security and I was pulled out of line. Then they re-x-rayed my carry-on, and then took a smallish plastic bag from its overstuffed and overburdened bowels—and I got a sinking feeling as they reached in and I remembered what had to be in there.
My hair products, all three of them: shampoo, conditioner, styling lotion. All necessary to tame my unruly locks into a semblance of order, and all full to the brim and each weighing well over 3.4 ounces. Not to mention that each had cost me $20-plus, and so the grand total for that little innocuous plastic bagful was over $60. I realized I didn’t have enough time to go back and see whether I could mail them to myself, which would save me considerable money, or figure out some other solution. I was stuck, the TSA guy so totally impervious to my pleas that I barely bothered to mount them. And when I plaintively asked what they would do with them, and he said “we throw them out,” it almost broke my heart.
I’ve replaced them, of course. $64 for that little moment of carelessness.
Cruz, the anti-establishment candidate
Here’s a guy who actually has fought the GOP establishment [hat tip: commenter “DNW”]:
Do you care?
I’ve been somewhat surprised at the willingness of quite a few erstwhile Cruz supporters to abandon him for Trump based on memes like “Cruz can’t win” (when he does better than Trump in polls, and his unfavorables are lower), and “The establishment will never support Cruz” (so what? You’re a voter; support him).
If you hate the establishment, Cruz is the one who has walked the walk and talked the talk. He is conservative in almost every respect, as well as incredibly smart.
I said I was somewhat surprised at the willingness of some Cruz supporters to abandon him for Trump. But after the first surprise, I realized it made sense in emotional terms. Trump is a lot more fun, particularly if you’re really really angry and want to act that out. Trump is a blast, as they say. Trump gets attention. Cruz just works for you, and has worked for you for years.
On Romney’s anti-Trump speech and the establishment
First of all, I don’t think Romney’s speech will do much either way. No one is going to decide one thing or another based on a speech that most people don’t even know about.
Political junkies are into it, and that’s about it, IMHO. But of course the blogosphere consists of a high percentage of political junkies (present company included), so here we are discussing it.
First thing I want to say is that ever since I’ve been immersed in the blogosphere and the internet in general, which would be roughly the last decade and a half, I’ve been more and more struck by how numerous are the false memes that circulate around and become commonly-accepted truth. I’ve spent a lot of time fighting them on this blog, mostly to a relatively small audience of people who are willing to spend some time listening. But I don’t kid myself that I am able to correct the record on much of anything in a way that matters, although I don’t give up trying to do so.
Sometimes I’m mostly motivated to correct the record for myself. After all, that’s what happened with my original political change experience—I did a lot more research, armed with the tools of an internet that did not exist when I was a young adult forming most of my political beliefs, and sometimes that research led me to some surprising revelations that ended up changing my point of view on certain facts and position I had thought I understood correctly. And so to this day I like to test out, not just the theories and beliefs of other people with whom I disagree, but my own theories and beliefs.
But enough about me. Perhaps too much about me.
Here’s the text of Romney’s speech today. In it, he explains why he thinks a Trump nomination would be a bad thing, and he summarizes pretty much the sorts of points I’ve been making on this blog, and which others who do not support Trump have often made. Romney also is not naive about the fact that he will be criticized for this, including of course by Trump himself in his usual signature fashion.
I question the wisdom of using a failed candidate like Romney to get out this message, and I would have preferred him to have also alluded to his own failings as a 2012 candidate, and his own responsibility for the situation we have faced in a second-term Obama presidency. In fact, there are plenty of things about Romney that were problematic in 2012. One of these problems was his Romneycare history, which I tried to explain on this blog many times (I think it looked worse than it actually was, but looks are important, too). Another was his failure to rebound from the Candy Crowley debate incident. But I’m not going to rehash that history in detail here, except to say that I thought and still think he would have actually made a pretty good president, and that—for a politician, anyway—he’s a decent man.
Trump supporters and even some others are mocking Romney today. Failure, coward, establishment shill, etc.. But I certainly don’t think Romney was attempting to convince any Trump supporters when he made that speech. He was speaking to others in the party who do not support Trump—some of whom are critical of the GOP establishment as well.
Many people who are against the GOP establishment act as though there is something exceedingly evil about it, whereas I see that establishment as typical of leaders of a party that’s been somewhat protected and grown ossified. It’s a process that often occurs. They are not a nimble group, as the fight against Obama and now against Trump has demonstrated very clearly, although we hardly needed more demonstration of it.
I’m not supporting nor have I ever supported during this election cycle one of their candidates. I was first for Scott Walker, next for Carly Fiorina, and after both were gone I settled on Cruz, where I remain today. But that doesn’t mean I think the GOP establishment is composed of demons. It is composed of people who think they are acting both in the interests of the country, a majority of GOP voters, and of course in their own self-interest. Why would they not act in their own self-interest as they see it? Self-sacrificing statesmen full of wisdom are few and far between and always have been, alas, although in certain historical times they were more plentiful than they are today. And if they are too self-sacrificing, they tend not to rise very high in the world of politics or business, or anything other than the world of sainthood.
But I digress; back to the text of Romney’s speech. The following passage, I believe, was the point of the speech in terms of Romney’s message towards the GOP voters and establishment leaders to whom it was actually addressed:
I am not going to endorse a candidate today. Instead, I would like to offer my perspective on the nominating process of my party. In 1964, days before the presidential election which, incidentally, we lost, Ronald Reagan went on national television and challenged America saying that it was a “Time for Choosing.” He saw two paths for America, one that embraced conservative principles dedicated to lifting people out of poverty and helping create opportunity for all, and the other, an oppressive government that would lead America down a darker, less free path. I’m no Ronald Reagan and this is a different moment but I believe with all my heart and soul that we face another time for choosing, one that will have profound consequences for the Republican Party and more importantly, for the country…
If the other candidates can find common ground, I believe we can nominate a person who can win the general election and who will represent the values and policies of conservatism. Given the current delegate selection process, this means that I would vote for Marco Rubio in Florida, for John Kasich in Ohio, and for Ted Cruz or whichever one of the other two contenders has the best chance of beating Mr. Trump in a given state.
Now for some of the more specific criticisms of Romney. One I’m seeing—other than the usual heat directed at the establishment himself—goes more or less like this: “Romney is giving Hillary Clinton talking points against Trump.” But the most common one seems to be: “Can anyone remember Mitt Romney being this forceful against Barack Obama?” (That latter sentence is a quote from DaTechGuy, a fellow New England blogger whom I’ve met and respect).
But to me the answers are easy. To the first: does anyone on earth think Hillary doesn’t have her own attack on Trump already planned, and that Romney’s will pale compared with hers? Let me assure you, of one thing I am certain, and that is that Hillary doesn’t need Romney to do her opposition research. The rest of that objection is merely the same objection that is always mounted towards intra-party criticism during any primary season, which of course gives the other side ammunition to use in the general but unavoidably occurs during all contested primary battles, which can and often are very vicious (sometimes more vicious than the general, because they are civil wars).
The second objection is easy to answer; all it takes is a little Googling and you find, for example, this from Romney in August of 2012:
Romney repeatedly and harshly criticized Team Obama for the remarks.
“[Obama’s] campaign and his surrogates have made wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the presidency. Another outrageous charge came a few hours ago in Virginia. And the White House sinks a little bit lower,” Romney said.
“This is an election in which we should be talking about the path ahead, but you don’t hear any answers coming from President Obama’s reelection campaign. That’s because he’s intellectually exhausted, out of ideas and out of energy. And so his campaign has resorted to diversions and distractions, to demagoguing and defaming others. This is an old game in politics; what’s different this year is that the president is taking things to a new low.”…
Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul then released a second statement criticizing the Obama campaign.
“In case anyone was wondering just how low President Obama could go in his campaign for reelection, we now know he’s willing to say that Gov. Romney wants to put people back in chains,” Saul said. “Whether it’s accusing Mitt Romney of being a felon, having been responsible for a woman’s tragic death or now wanting to put people in chains, there’s no question that because of the president’s failed record he’s been reduced to a desperate campaign based on division and demonization.”
Romney denounced Obama right after the Benghazi attacks:
As soon as Mr. Romney landed [he’d been on a plane], he was updated on breaking developments. He personally read and approved his campaign’s statement before it was sent out at 10:10 p.m. Tuesday. “It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks,” it said.
More on Romney’s near-immediate response to Benghazi:
…Romney reiterated the charge at a hastily staged news conference here Wednesday morning.
“I think it’s a terrible course for America to stand in apology for our values, that instead when our grounds are being attacked and being breached, that the first response of the United States must be outrage at the breach of the sovereignty of our nation,” Romney told reporters. “An apology for America’s values is never the right course.”
…Romney took a calculated gamble in admonishing the president before the full gravity of the situation was known.
But he was left hanging from a weak limb as many in his party ”” including his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) ”” appeared to undercut him with noticeably more conciliatory and somber responses. “This is a time for healing. It’s a time for resolve,” Ryan said Wednesday during a campaign stop in De Pere, Wis.
“It almost feels like Sarah Palin is his foreign policy adviser,” Matthew Dowd, who was a top strategist for president George W. Bush, said in an interview. “It’s just a huge mistake on the Romney campaign’s part ”” huge mistake.”
Now, those critics were the real GOP establishment, the ones who didn’t attack Obama right away, and it was the wrong approach. But that wasn’t Romney, who kept going until Crowley kneecapped him in the debate (at which point I though he should have challenged her more forcibly).
Romney is not an angel; he made mistakes. That makes him human, and I don’t think he was critical enough of Obama in 2012. But it’s not at all hard to find some very forceful anti-Obama statements by Romney (I did it in less than 30 seconds), and people have let them drop down the memory hole because in the end they were not effective enough. But you know what? I don’t think that more statements of that kind by Romney (or anyone else) in 2012 would have done a particle of good, because the American people weren’t willing to accept them at the time.
[ADDENDUM: By the way, here’s a good example of my efforts to try to correct the record. It was a response of mine which describes Romney’s actual positions on illegal immigration when he ran for president in 2012. Compare it, if you like, to your recollection of those positions. My comment also includes Trump’s position at the time on Romney’s position. The entire comment of mine was a response to this comment by “JurassiCon Rex.”]
Another piece from missing Malaysian plane may have been found
It’s hard to believe it’s been two years since Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing and dominated the new cycle for a while.
It was somewhat of a relief when a part later confirmed to have come from the missing airplane was found last July on Reunion Island east of Madagascar. But that was it since then. Now another possible piece has been found in very roughly the same area, on a sandbank on the eastern shore of the mainland in the Mozambique Channel, which separates Madagascar from the east African coast:
The object has the words “NO STEP” on it and could be from the plane’s horizontal stabilizer ”” the wing-like parts attached to the tail, sources say. It was discovered by an American who has been blogging about the search for MH370.
Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Center said it was aware of the discovery and arranging for a thorough examination. Malaysia Airlines said it was “too speculative at this point” to comment.
Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said on Twitter that there was a “high possibility debris found in Mozambique belongs to a” Boeing 777, but said that was “yet to be confirmed and verified.”
It could take about a month for definitive word on whether the part is indeed a piece of the plane. A search of a section of ocean floor as large as South Carolina has been ongoing and is due to be completed in midyear. So far, 75% of the area has been scrutinized, and nothing has been found.
[NOTE: I said “nothing has been found,” but that’s not strictly true. Nothing of the plane has been found on the ocean floor. But a 19th-century shipwreck has been located.]
Chris Christie…
…is slipping on Trump’s coattails.
His already-low approval rating is even lower now:
…[T]he governor’s endorsement of presidential candidate Donald Trump did not help him at home, possibly even driving more supporters to turn against him.
The poll, which was conducted in the days before and after the Trump endorsement last week, found Christie’s approval rating fell from 33 percent before he announced his support to 27 percent after. Disapproval increased from 59 percent to 64.
Those numbers, however, have a margin of error of more than 5 percent ”” higher than the rest of the poll ”” because of the smaller sample size. Still, it’s clear the governor’s surprising decision to back a figure loathed by many establishment Republicans did him no favors in the Garden State.
“Christie’s return to his roots after suspending his White House run was an opportunity to re-establish some good will with voters,” Krista Jenkins, professor of political science and director of FDU’s PublicMind, said in a statement. “But joining forces with Donald Trump was hardly a vehicle for getting voters to reconsider their sour mood toward the Governor.”
If Trump is the GOP nominee, this will be a dilemma faced by all the Republican office-holders in the land. The GOP has been doing very well with governorships and state Congresses. And yet either support of Trump or lack of support of Trump could hurt GOP politicians, alienating those who disagree with their chosen stance in an election year in which feelings run very, very high.
[NOTE: This column is very, very funny (hat tip: CV).]
Further post-Super Tuesday thoughts
My first thought is that this primary season has been a nightmare—but an interesting nightmare.
My second is that if one more person writes that I don’t understand the anger driving Trump voters, I will scream (virtually, of course). Because I’ve observed and dealt with, argued with and to a certain extent shared, that anger for many years. Any blogger unaware of that anger by the time these primaries began should really give up blogging; it was that obvious. In fact, in 2012 I predicted a party rift if Romney were to lose the presidency, and even before that my stomach predicted a Romney loss, which meant a rift was nearly inevitable.
I wouldn’t say my stomach never lies, but let’s just say it’s not feeling so well right now, either.
My third observation is that there’s a lot of angst on the liberal side of the fence, too. Having attended a series of family functions lately that involved being in the bosom of groups of liberals, I detect a fair amount of unhappiness with the choices they are being presented with, and of course with the possibility of a Trump presidency. One of the relatives who is quite politically aware and involved summed it up this way: “I feel as though for the first time in my life I have no candidate.” She has long detested Hillary Clinton, and is no socialist and therefore Sanders does not present an alternative for her.
I know you’re not going to weep bitter tears at her plight, but I get the impression she’s hardly alone. And she sounded quite bewildered.
My fourth observation is that Trump did worse than I expected last night (although still very very well), Cruz better, and Rubio worse. Unfortunately, that doesn’t translate to the clarity I’ve been seeking. If Cruz were to emerge unequivocally as the leading non-Trump candidate and Rubio to fade, I would be quite happy, and I happen to think that Cruz could win against Hillary. But the results were just even enough between them that neither is a clear enough second-placer to knock out the other.
At present, though, there are hints that the so-called “establishment” is starting to think that Cruz is a more acceptable face for the party than Trump. Witness one Lindsay Graham, RINO extraordinaire, who had recently joked about murdering Cruz on the Senate floor and no one being willing to convict, and who is now saying this:
“…[The GOP] may be in a position where we have to rally around Ted Cruz as the only way to stop Donald Trump. And I’m not so sure that would work.”
When interviewer Charlie Rose asked Graham to confirm that he thinks Cruz is the only candidate who could stop Trump’s march to the GOP nomination, Graham agreed. “I can’t believe I would say yes, but yes,” he said.
Graham said Hillary Clinton would beat Trump “like a drum” in November.
“I think we’re about ready to lose to the most dishonest politician in America, Hillary Clinton,” Graham said. “And how could you do that — nominate someone who’s crazy. I think dishonest beats crazy. That’s our problem.”
I think that the GOP must indeed unite around Cruz now. But if so, someone needs to get the message to Rubio and his backers, and good luck with that. There is, however, a scenario (not a likely one, but a possible one) in which both Rubio and Cruz stay in and it leads to a brokered convention. A brokered convention that shuns front runner Trump would be another sort of nightmare that would rend the party still further, but it might be worth it because there may not be that much rending left to be done.
If the GOP nominates Trump, the party will be utterly changed into something a lot of former Republicans will not be able to support. If a brokered convention denies Trump the nomination despite his lead, Trump and his supporters are likely to declare war and go third party in revenge. But even if Trump becomes the official GOP nominee, if he loses to Clinton I predict that a great many of the Trump supporters will blame the GOP establishment for it with a “stab in the back” narrative that will go on and on.
[ADDENDUM: Some interesting observations by Jonathan V. Last:
Why did [Trump] lose Oklahoma? Because it’s the only state where the vote was restricted to actual Republicans. Which further bolsters the case that Trump is not leading a revolt from within the party, but staging a hostile takeover of it.
What happened in Virginia? Trump looked to be 14 points up just a few days ago. Rubio closed very strongly.
And remember back when everyone said Trump had a ceiling of support around 35 percent? That was before he won three contests and got his first mainstream endorsements, from Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Jeff Sessions. There was that garbage poll from CNN on Monday claiming Trump was at 49 percent nationally. His total take of the popular vote on Super Tuesday was about . . . 36 percent. Which is enough to win, but shows that he hasn’t grown his coalition, even with his frontrunner status having been “normalized.”
It may be a myth that Trump has some sort of 1/3-or-slightly-above ceiling. But so far that figure is pretty much what has panned out.]